XmlTextReader.HasValue tells whether the current node can have a Value other than String.Empty.
Imports System Imports System.IO Imports System.Xml Public Class Sample Public Shared Sub Main() Dim reader As XmlTextReader = Nothing Try reader = New XmlTextReader("book1.xml") reader.WhitespaceHandling = WhitespaceHandling.None While reader.Read() If reader.HasValue Then Console.WriteLine("({0}) {1}={2}", reader.NodeType, reader.Name, reader.Value) Else Console.WriteLine("({0}) {1}", reader.NodeType, reader.Name) End If End While Finally If Not (reader Is Nothing) Then reader.Close() End If End Try End Sub End Class